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National Oilwell Varco's technology is helping pull oil companies out of the bust by automating how they drill.

is the world's biggest builder of oilfield gear. Last year it sold $21 billion worth of everything from drilling rigs and compressors to blowout preventers and pipe. But this year, as oil prices plunged, NOV's sales have tumbled 26% and its shares are off 50%, erasing more than $15 billion in market cap. That's what happens when America's oil companies mothball half their drilling rigs and lay off more than 150,000 workers.

But where others see disaster, Clay Williams, CEO of NOV, sees opportunity. Busts have a bright side: Oil companies get interested in learning new tricks. "In the $100-per-barrel world there's not much incentive to do things differently, because everybody's making money," he says. "But in a $50-per-barrel world, reality sets in and our customers say, 'How can we do things differently? How can we make the economics work?' "

Williams has an answer: big data and robotics. Rather than drillers using intuition and experience to seek oil, today a core part of NOV's business is selling technology that lets machines do the heavy lifting. "We are in the golden age of oilfield technology," says Williams.

NOV has been working to perfect its automated drilling techniques for more than three years. At one of the company's nerve centers in Houston, sensors embedded behind drill bits cutting through rock miles underground feed real-time data to charts and squiggles on giant screens. Engineers talk over headsets, using the data to advise workers on board rigs across the country and the Gulf of Mexico. A handful of wells don't get nearly as much human attention, because artificial intelligence is doing the work on some sections. Software sucks up real-time data on well conditions, runs it through painstakingly designed algorithms and immediately adjusts operations--much faster than humans can. Now that NOV has drilled automated wells for the likes of Corp., , and more, the verdict is in: Computers can do it 40% faster than humans.

Faster drilling means cheaper drilling, which makes marginal oilfields economical at lower oil prices. It costs about $20,000 a day to contract an onshore drilling rig, so shaving four days off a well yields an immediate $80,000 in savings. If smarter computers can reduce a rig's head count by one, cut another $200,000 a year in salary, benefits and accommodations. The savings will be greater at offshore projects, where rigs cost more than $100,000 a day and wells go up to 5 miles deep. Not everyone is convinced. Fred Dupriest, who oversaw drilling at for many years and now teaches at Texas A&M, says most of the time the secret to drilling faster is simple: Add more weight to push the drill bit harder. "You don't need a computer for that."

Tony Pink, vice president of NOV's drilling automation division, disagrees. "Drilling is like an art form," says Pink, who spent the first ten years of his career drilling in the North Sea, Nigeria and the Gulf of Mexico.